An Extended Video Graphics Array (XGA) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) having 1024×768 pixels has approximately 2.36 million pixels. Each pixel is driven by a Thin Film Transistor (TFT). It is very difficult to manufacture sub-pixels without any defects in the manufacturing process of such LCD. For this reason, a limited number of point, region or location defects are ordinarily allowed.
There is a case where one defective sub-pixel can cause a malfunction, which causes a picture element to generate different colors or bright points appear when a black color should appear. In this case, an entirely different color from peripheral colors appear or only one point shines in white color when filling all of the display completely with black color, which leads to low contrast of the screen. Consequently, point defects appear on the display. One of the methods for repairing point defects is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 6-11675, for example. The method is to change bright point defects to dark point defects by covering the bright point defective portion with black color or leaving an ink of a heat transfer sheet on the bright point defective portion. Or, defects are repaired by a self-leak method which is a fake repair method to make dark/bright points to be inconspicuous dots. Either of these methods were not repair solutions to remove defects because these methods only make dark/bright points to be inconspicuous dots. It was unavoidable that a remarkable yield loss occurred when we addressed severe requirements from customers such as “Point defect free”.
The Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 9-230128 discloses a method that a defective filter is removed with a YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) laser beam and then the colored layer is transferred to the portion where the filter previously existed. Further, the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-253583 and No. 8-150487 or the like disclose repair methods for defective conductor sections or insulator sections. Such methods are effective for removing defects. These methods were not, however, applicable to such materials as semiconductor layers because materials free of discoloring and deterioration were exclusively used even when being melted by heating. That was resulted from the need for temporally melting the colored layer and the conductors or the like using a semiconductor laser beam. Furthermore, it was impossible to repair a thin film comprising 2 layers or more simultaneously.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of repairing a failed point, region, location or pixel to have a perfect function when a semiconductor device including an LCD or other electronic device has defects.
It is another object of the present invention to transfer a single or multi-layer film to the other portion with its characteristics unchanged.